Watch Out For Shadows, Sometimes They Move
by Aunt Kitty
Summary: Follow-up to the Ducky/Sandy snippet "The Vast, Terrible In-Between." Sometimes shadows stop and stay for a while. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** Sometimes shadows stop and stay for a while.

**Note:** This is a follow-up to the Ducky/Sandy snippet "_**The Vast, Terrible In-Between**_." That was supposed to be a one-shot; I had no plans to continue it. But as so often happens in the Ducky & Sandy universe, _the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglay_. So. This is AU cubed; Ducky and Sandy are AU to the NCIS canon universe—this is AU for _their_ universe. As noted with "Vast," If you haven't read any of the Ducky & Sandy tales, in order they are _**TGIF**_**, **_**OHIM**_**, **_**Life Is What Happens**_**, **_**CHAOS! **_and _**My Life**_. You can easily follow this knowing that Ducky got married, but I would suggest reading "Vast" if nothing else.

**Betas/Cheerleaders/Lab Assistants:** **Shara Michelle**, **Jan. McNeville**, dozens of people on my email list and the CAA! Forum; in real life, Dixie for information on weapons and novice shooting.

**Genre:** Angst

**Pairing:** Ducky/OFC

**Rating/Warnings:** T (cuss words; violence; disturbing imagery)

**Spoilers:** If you haven't seen "Meat Puzzle" from season 2, 1) where have you been? 2) stop reading and go watch it _right now_; we'll wait.

**Disclaimer:** All NCIS characters are the property of Bellisarius Productions, Paramount, CBS and the appropriate copyright holders within those companies. All other characters for this story (barring real persons mentioned in passing) are my original creation and property.

**Time:** March-May, 2009

* * *

**Watch Out For Shadows, Sometimes They Move When You're Not Looking At Them  
**_(J. Michael Straczynski, "The Coming of Shadows" (Babylon 5))_

**by Aunt Kitty**

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

"_McGee just called. Mary Hanlan does **not** live in your neighborhood."_

_Ducky's eyes closed briefly and I saw him mouth 'thank god.' But the fear in his eyes hadn't changed. "When?" he asked, voice amazingly even._

"_December. Overturned on appeal. She was in a halfway house until last month. No parole, so she's not required to file an address—"_

I was having a relatively quiet nervous breakdown. Ducky had said _nothing _since telling me to call Gibbs. "What? _What?_" I had said, over and over; he just sat on the stepstool, staring into space while the water ran in the sink. Silence. Heavy, tense silence.

My conversation with Gibbs was almost as terse.

"Gibbs."

"Gibbs, it's Sandy Mallard—"

"What's wrong?" (I could say it was rattling that he immediately leaped to a bad conclusion, but I did sound a little hysterical in just my introduction.)

"Ducky said to call you, call you _now_, he's in the kitchen, he's dead white—" I didn't have to worry about Ducky overhearing me, I was on the living room/office extension.

"Is he sick? Heart attack? Call 911, don't—"

"No, no, I—I just told him about meeting a neighbor, he said, 'Call Gibbs, call Gibbs _now_'—"

"What neighbor?"

"Just a woman—Mary, Mary Hanlan—"

"_What_?" he said sharply.

"Mary Hanlan…?"

For a Marine, Gibbs keeps his language pretty clean. An occasional 'damn' or 'hell' is the usual, with the rare foray into something pithier. He let loose with a string of undeleted expletives that outdid me on my worst day, snapped unintelligible (to me) orders to his team and ended with, "Do not leave! Lock the doors, do not move otherwise! I'm sending Ziva and Tony, I'll get the local LEOs over there _now_—"

I was shaking so hard, I literally fell into Ducky's chair. "Gibbs, what—"

He was probably realizing he was freaking me out (Understatement!) and dropped it down a notch. "Sandy—Mary Hanlan is _bad news_—"

"Yeah, I kinda got that. What—"

"She is _sneaky_, she is _devious_, she is _psychotic_."

"She seemed so nice," I blurted out.

"Like a scorpion. _Do not open the door._ The codeword is Shanghai, if they don't use it, don't let them in—"

"Jeez, Gibbs, I'll recognize Ziva and—"

"Do. Not. Let. Them. In. Without. That. Code!" he barked.

"But—"

"If they don't use the code, they may be under duress. Forced to knock on the door because someone you _don't_ want coming in is holding a gun on them."

I was starting to hyperventilate. A hand dropped to my shoulder and I let out a screech and jumped, slamming into the seat back.

"Sorry." Ducky's voice was gentle, at odds with the hard, angry, almost dangerous look on his face. (_You thought he was pissed when you went gallivanting all over town to nail an embezzling accountant masquerading as a nurse? Baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet._) He took the phone from my limp hand. "Jethro." He listened for a moment. "Shanghai." He nodded, listening. Receiver tucked between shoulder and ear, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a lockbox I'd never seen before. When he opened it and I saw what was inside, I wished I'd never seen it, _period_.

It was a gun.

/ / /

I stayed upstairs with the baby, locked in her room until I heard voices of safety downstairs: Gibbs, Ziva and Tony. I didn't even leave when I heard—and saw, thanks to the lights-no-siren arrival flashing through the window—two "local LEOs" (Reston cops) in the house.

I left Allie sleeping peacefully and soundly and ran downstairs. Gibbs and company were sitting in the living room, Gibbs looking as grim as Ducky did.

"McGee just called. Mary Hanlan does _not_ live in your neighborhood."

Ducky's eyes closed briefly and I saw him mouth 'thank god.' But the fear in his eyes hadn't changed. "When?" he asked, voice amazingly even.

"December. Overturned on appeal. She was in a halfway house until last month. No parole, so she's not required to file an address—"

I went right over the edge and kept on falling. "Appeal? Parole?" I yelled. (Mother was sound asleep and would never hear a thing.) "_Who_ is this Mary Hanlan? _Why_ did she put you into Defcon One mode? _What_ the _hell_ is going _on_?"

Ziva put a hand on my arm; I calmed down slightly and sat down—fell down—next to Ducky.

Silence. "You wanna do the talking, Duck?"

Ducky wouldn't even look up at me; after a long moment, he shook his head: no.

Gibbs sighed. "Back in February of oh-five we had a case that was… weirder than the normal run. 'Someone' left a bunch of barrels at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Full of alcohol and… parts."

"Parts?" I asked reluctantly.

"Body parts."

I squeaked and clamped a hand over my mouth. Good idea, because by the time Gibbs was through, I was ready to toss my cookies.

I couldn't even look over at Ducky while Gibbs told the tale of the Hanlan family. I had asked him once about the small but vicious scar on his neck. "Shaving accident," he had joked; I dropped the subject, figuring if he wanted to tell me, he would. He hadn't, so he didn't. Truth was kinda different.

"And… she's… out," I said evenly as Gibbs wound down the tale of revenge, violence and all-around psychotic and sociopathic behavior—and a _soupçon_ of more than suspected incest as the capper. "How? _Why_?" (The Hanlan family was crazier than anything Jonathan Kellerman has cooked up—and I had stopped reading his stuff because even though it was very well written the creepy and sick bad guys were just _too_ creepy and sick.)

"Appeal. Defense claimed Mary was the innocent victim of Vincent Hanlan. Got a couple of shrinks to back her up and an appeals judge who agreed," he said with definite disgust in his voice.

"But—_you_ arrested her." I turned from Gibbs to Ducky, who still didn't look at me. (Wouldn't? Or couldn't?) "_You_ were her victim. Why weren't either of you at the trial?"

Tony answered. "We all received notice—well, all but Ziva." That's right; she hadn't linked up with NCIS until later that year—a month or two before Halloween. I remembered her mentioning it when Abby tried to get me to say yes to Allie going out trick-or-treating. "They were using court records and transcripts; we were on alert that we _could_ be called in for additional testimony. No one was. Nobody thought any more about it—and the automatic notification when she was freed wasn't so automatic."

"And she's—" My voice started to shake. "She's going after Ducky."

Gibbs nodded. He didn't point out the obvious: I was now probably a target, too. And, given that she lost her favorite son during their partially successful quest for vengeance, it would probably be quite logical (in _her_ universe) to say, 'I lost my son—you lose your daughter.' It took a superhuman effort not to tear upstairs, grab Allie and head for safer ground.

(Say—Mars?)

I listened numbly while plans were formed around me. Order of protection. (Yeah, those work really well. Just ask all the women whose stalkers ignored that piece of paper. Oh, yeah—you can't…_because they're __**dead**_.) Protection detail in place 24/7 for all of us. McGee was back at the Navy Yard, reading Kim Mitchell's team in on the old case and current information. He had called Gibbs again with the information that Mary Hanlan wasn't listed anywhere in the tri-state area, but her ex-husband (they had divorced during the first trial) and remaining son still lived where they had four years ago. Mitchell's team was en route and would relieve Tony and Ziva; in the morning they would switch over to Joe Tenley's team. I would have preferred Tony and Ziva, but I understood: they were the primary investigative team on this—it was personal. Plus they had worked a full shift and it was closing in on ten at night. But the real question I had was, "_Four_ agents?"

Gibbs exchanged a short look with Ducky. "Four protectees. Ducky. You. Ducky's mom." He hesitated a split second. "Peanut. _Four_ agents."

"Suzy?" I blurted. If something happened to her because Ducky was the target, he would never live with the guilt. _We_ would never live with the guilt.

"We'll make sure to have five during the day." He checked Ducky's gun over and looked… _pleased_. "Well maintained. Score?"

"Ninety-four."

Ziva looked impressed. "Excellent, Ducky. When was the last time you were in the field?"

_(You mean other than being kidnapped and almost murdered by exsanguination?)_

_(And what do you mean—in the field? Since when does NCIS send out their M.E. on an assignment?)_

"Armed? Several years. But it has been impressed upon me to keep my skills current." (_Gibbs. Bet it's Gibbs_.)

She nodded in pleased agreement. "We should visit the target range together one day."

(_Oh, __**hell**__ no. Over my dead_—)

(_Let's not go there_.)

Ziva and Tony were relieved by a foursome I only partly recognized—Carmen MacKenzie and Paul Elkins; I had met them at the Christmas party a few months before—the other two, Marcia Cox and Thomas Jones (I swear to god, yes, Tom Jones) were new to me.

Agent Cox took a chair outside Mother's room. MacKenzie and Jones cruised up and downstairs, silently going through rooms and doorways, passing each other on the stairs and communicating via whispers over tiny microphones. Elkins circled around the perimeter of the house. They did a visual check on us every half hour. I should have felt safe; why didn't I?

I knew all of this because if you think I slept one minute that night, you're crazier than Abbie Hoffman running for political office in Arizona.

Ducky didn't get much sleep, either. Every few minutes one or the other of us would get up and check on Allie. At midnight we finally gave up, put her port-a-crib in the corner of our room and parked her soundly sleeping diapered butt where she was within eyesight at all times. It made it easier for our watchdogs to keep an eye on us; amazingly it didn't feel like a prison cell. And then… we talked. Whispers. Murmurs. Hushed tones of guilt and regret.

And let's not forget fear. Lots and _lots_ of fear.

There were times when I was growing up that I thought I had an offbeat family. For the Hanlan clan, offbeat would be a noble goal. The Manson Family would fit right in at their Thanksgiving table.

We worked our way through a nightmare that was going to leave me sleepless for a year up to what was a relatively minor point but the only one even slightly in my control. "A _gun_. Ducky… we have your mother—god knows I love her, but, not the most stable and reliable—"

He sighed in agreement.

"But now we have a child in the house—!"

"And we have a lockbox that is hidden and extremely secure. It has a thumbprint lock as well as a combination. No one else can get in. Not even you."

_Unless they have an Abby to break the code and someone hacks off your thumb._ Not a thought that would normally pop into my head—but this was a far from normal night. "I'll accept that—but, Ducky… you never told me." I'm not MacGyver, but I'm not crazy about guns. I was kind of peeved. (I was avoiding the real topic like crazy.)

He looked embarrassed. "I truly thought I had. I'm sorry."

I sighed. "Forgiven."

"Perhaps…" he said slowly, "you should learn to shoot."

I was about to blurt out, "Are you effing nuts?" and was hit with a sudden cascade vision: Mary Hanlan. Allie in her crib. Mother sitting in the back yard. Allie holding her arms up, wanting to be picked up. The Hammer House of Horrors film that Gibbs had recited. Allie, being picked up… and carried off by Mary Hanlan.

I clenched my fists. "_**Yes.**_"


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

By the end of the first week, I think we had met every agent at NCIS.

The morning shift would come in about 0600. One agent would stick like glue to Ducky; after some intense discussion, he agreed to leave the Morgan at home and let the agent du jour drive him in and then come home with the agent for the night shift. If he went anywhere off the Yard, it was a chorus of "Me and My Shadow." I had nightmares over my choices. Go to work? Two agents would go with me—one for me, one for Allie. And going in would put everyone at the store at risk, too. (They were probably safe if I wasn't there. Or so I hoped.) Stay at home? Four agents would stay with us. Mother was bewildered by Charlie, Ev and Lily staying away and these strangers in her house. We told her the girls all had purple spotted influenza plague and were in quarantine for an indefinite period of time. She was all for running up to Kalorama to take care of them; we briefly considered sedating her for the duration.

Suzy was even harder to deal with—but for a good reason. Her job was to take care of Victoria, she argued; I had the baby to watch, I couldn't be running around after both of them. While I did that on the weekend, at least part of every weekend, that was on the _weekend_—when I had Ducky and the girls on deck if Suzy wasn't hanging around. Suzy stood her ground; I wavered. Then she pointed out that when she had served several tours as a nurse, she had also been trained in self-defense, both hand-to-hand and small arms. No offense to NCIS and their stellar agents… but I felt better just knowing Grandma Suzy was on duty and packing heat.

The police couldn't do anything. Mary hadn't done anything illegal, and we hadn't seen or heard of her since that day she stopped by. They were willing to shrug and walk away.

NCIS took things a little more seriously. A _lot_ more seriously. They had read about—in the case of Gibbs, McGee, DiNozzo and Kate Todd, an agent who had died in the line of duty only a few months later, seen in person—what had happened to Ducky. (Ducky fared better than the others Mary and her misfit son got to. A scar on the throat beats dead any day.) All of the agents knew Ducky. Even if his stories made some of them roll their eyes or sigh, he was NCIS family—and you don't screw with family. They rotated shifts through the house with a grim determination: no way in hell would Mary Hanlan get past _them_.

While they were actively working on hunting Mary to ground, team Gibbs frequently came though the house as part of a detail, one at a time. Mother was still occasionally foggy on identifying them, but they had a better reception than the new agents. And Tim McGee let it slip why Gibbs was being such a hardass about so many agents in residence. Kate Todd had been assigned protection detail the night Ducky disappeared. Mary and company had let a dog loose to catch Mother's attention, and when Kate was distracted by getting Mother back into the house, they snatched Ducky. Kate beat herself up over what had happened, but Gibbs took full blame. Two protectees—he should have assigned two agents. I stopped questioning the number in the house and just made bigger lunches and dinners.

And… I learned to shoot.

Ducky admitted that while he was a decent shot, his ninety-four on the range was an exceptionally good day. Ziva has, on a normal basis, the second-highest score on the team (Gibbs is first) and Director Shepard had no problem with Ziva setting aside an hour or two a day to teach me how to clean, maintain, load and accurately fire a weapon (to be picky, Ducky's .45 automatic). My training was officially part of her assignment.

My first time on the range was laughable. The recoil threw my arms up over my head and I yelped and flinched back a good foot. (Plus I almost dislodged my ear cover and my goggles were askew.) I didn't even come close to hitting the target. On my second shot, my shoulders aching like crazy, I aimed the gun that now seemed to weigh fifty pounds, fired—and again I didn't hit the target. But I got closer. And I didn't jerk up nearly as far or _"eep"_ nearly so much.

By the end of the second hour, I was actually hitting the target. Sometimes I even hit the _To Tell The Truth_ silhouette. My last profile had three shots in the background, a shoulder nick, a blasted elbow… and a dead center perfect crotch shot. I've never seen Ziva laugh so hard.

The next day, I felt like I'd been drafted by the Oakland Raiders—as their tackle dummy. Even my toes hurt. But thinking about Mary Hanlan… I had read the mountains of transcripts and pumped DiNozzo and McGee for details. It was like a train wreck; I was horrified and repulsed, but I couldn't turn away.

And every time I thought of Mary Hanlan having been inches away from my child, I gritted my teeth, put the pain on "ignore" and worked on my aim.

Having friends in high places is a good thing. Ziva had been instructing me at a private range, but Director Shepard looked the other way when Gibbs snuck me in to Hogan's Alley, a mockup alley where bad guys would pop up at any moment… and so would good guys. (Abby called it Death Row.) My job was to tell the difference and take out the bad guys—or at least put them out for a while.

"Live ammo, just like on the range. Only one shooter on the field, so you don't have to worry about takin' anyone down for real—or being their target. If Mary Hanlan reappears, it could be alone at night, like when she snatched Ducky… or right in the middle of the National Mall. Wherever and whenever she thinks will give her the advantage." He squeezed my shoulder. "Ziva showed me your targets. You're a natural."

Oh, please. "Yeah. Right," I snorted. "I didn't even hit the paper at first."

"_At first_. By the end of the week, you were in the seventies. Damned good, Mrs. Mallard," he teased. "Ready?"

I sucked in a breath and let it out with a whoosh. "I guess…"

To make it even more of a challenge, Gibbs changed the lighting to dusk. I took a few steadying breaths and stepped out into the mockup. I had visions of _Men In Black_ flitting through my head but I was pretty sure Gibbs wouldn't set the inhabitants up as multi-tentacled things popping up and down.

A door to my left flew open and I couldn't stifle a scream. The figure in the doorway had a photo of Mary Hanlan for its face. Not that unexpected, really.

She was pushing a stroller.

_Allie's stroller._

The sound of the ocean roaring, pounding, washed over me…

Gibbs' voice came over the speaker. "Wanna reload?"

I jumped and looked up, startled. "What?"

"You emptied your magazine. Wanna reload?"

The blind rage that had swept over me for a moment had cleared quickly. I looked at the doorway as the figure swung up from the floor and back into place. I stared at it, stunned.

"Disabling shot, right shoulder. Disabling shot, upper right torso. Kill shot, chest. Kill shot, chest. Kill shot, chest. Disabling shot, lower left torso. Nice grouping on those kill shots. Ziva's done you well."

_Kill shot._

_Kill shot._

_Kill shot._

I stared at the figure with six holes in it. _You are __**so**__ dead, bitch_. I popped the magazine and reloaded. "Moving on…"


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

Monday became Tuesday became Wednesday became another week and another… No contact from Mary Hanlan. No calls, no letters, no sightings. And team Gibbs had squat. Neither her husband—_ex_-husband—nor her son had any information as to where she was holed up. And, frankly, they didn't _want_ to know. According to Gibbs, when they talked to Fred, the ex, and they told him Mary was out, he turned dead white, _wet himself_, blacked out, cracked his head on the cement steps and ended up in the ER with a concussion. Yep, divorce was a good choice.

Sonny boy, Jonathan, fared even worse. He started to cry, fumbled his way into the corner, and sat there, sobbing hysterically and banging his head on the wall. They had to track down his psychiatrist to come and sedate him and take him to the hospital. (Same one his dad was at, just a vastly different wing.) I'm betting he doesn't send her Mother's Day cards.

Mary had had darn few visitors in prison. Her attorney during the initial trial. Her court-appointed attorney—a different one—during the appeal. (The one that ended up being paid 100% out of our tax dollars was the one that got her out. Nothing like adding salt to a wound…) Some paralegals from the attorneys' offices. A couple of true-crime authors. Not one friend, not one relative. She didn't have many relatives who _could _visit—ex-husband (ha), son (ha), a couple of far-flung cousins who probably didn't even remember her name. One aunt in a county-run home for the elderly in Wisconsin. No siblings—she'd only had one, a sister, who had died about fifteen years before, beaten to death by her alcoholic husband who shot himself and torched their house. The prison chaplain tried to stop by a few times; waste of time and breath. So… Where was she? What was she doing for money? _What was she planning to do?_

Running away to Mars was sounding better and better.

Ducky would normally call home a couple of times a day—either to the store, if I went in that day, or the house if I had played hooky. With the Sword of Mary Damocles hanging overhead, he was calling home every hour or two. No complaint; I love talking with him and Allie squeals and coos and babbles in response to his voice on the phone, so _she_ loves hearing from him, too. (Mother just scolds him for neglecting his work.) I know he was checking up, making sure we were okay (despite four Federal agents on duty), and, frankly, it made me feel better to hear _his_ voice, too. Yes, he works at a secure location. But I've heard him mention a few—a few, not a lot of—bad guys have gotten inside. So hearing his voice, knowing he was okay, made me feel a _lot_ better.

Wednesday. I was in the living room, playing with Allie. Ziva was sitting on the couch, watching us while keeping a weather eye on the surroundings. Mother was taking a nap; her shadow, Donna Potter, would stroll across the doorway to her bedroom, then upstairs, a loop around the rooms up there, then back down to check the downstairs rooms, then back to check on Mother—then repeat from the start. Suzy was in the kitchen; Cecelia Avery was keeping her company as she worked on dinner. (She woke up that morning with a yen for ribs. We _never_ say no to Suzy's ribs. Lily, Ev and Charlie would be heartbroken to have to miss them.) The last agent, Bruce Kirkaby, was doing perimeter patrol. The day shift agents were always jazzed that shift change meant they would be here through dinner; all of the agents were enjoying this assignment—the free eats were good eats.

"Good choice!" Allie and I were playing stack the blocks; she had sort of set a green rectangle on top of a larger yellow square. I straightened it slightly and added a 2D circle to the stack. I deliberately chose a larger disk, making the tower wobble a little. "Oh-oh…" Allie watched in fascination. "Your turn. Pick a block." I pointed to the pile. She grabbed a purple cube in her chubby little hand and held it out; I stacked it, carefully not centering it—and the tower crashed to the floor. She let out a delighted shriek and clapped her hands. "That's what we call gravity, kiddo. Also, cause and effect, or—" The doorbell rang. "For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction." I scooped her up and popped her in the playpen.

Ziva beat me to the door and peered through the curtain on the side window. "Delivery van," she said quietly. "_Say It With Flowers_."

I flinched; the Hanlans had sent a bucket of parts to this same address. "Please tell me he's holding a handful of daisies."

"Long white box."

"Roses? Or a Tommy gun?" She gave me a baffled look. "We'll talk gangsters later."

"Kirkaby is standing by the van."

"Good. Hello?" I called through the closed door.

"Delivery for Mrs. Donald Mallard!"

At Ziva's nod, I cracked open the door. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Mallard?"

"Yes." I signed the manifest and reached for the box.

"Wait," Ziva ordered the driver. "Set it down." When he looked at her in confusion, she pointed to the porch. "On the step."

He set it on the brick entryway, looking at her like she was nuts. "Jeez, it's just—"

Her look shut him up. (She is _good_ at that skill.) She tugged the ends of the white ribbon, untying the bow. Nothing. She carefully edged the end of the lid up; craning my neck, I could see tissue-wrapped flower stems and said so.

"Whaddya think it is, a bomb?" Ziva shot him a quelling look, which he missed. "I mean, we'll deliver weird shit—and once it really _was_ shit—but—"

I was smiling over the thought that Ducky had sent home roses for no reason. My smile froze. It was roses, all right—wilted, dried out, _dead_ roses.

"Who sent this?" Ziva demanded.

The driver shrugged. "Check the card?"

Holding the envelope by the corner, Ziva edged out the piece of cardstock. Her eyes flicked toward me; hesitating a moment, she turned it toward me. "_In Sympathy For the Loss of Your Loved One_," I read flatly.

"Unsigned." Her look was plain; like we have to guess? "Again: _who sent this_?"

"Hey. It's a mostly cash business. _Say It With Flowers?_ We send dead flowers, black roses, weeds, cactuseses—" (Got an extra "es" there, sunshine.) "You know. Stuff for your ex… telling your boss, 'take this job and shove it'—stuff like that. You want to refuse it?"

"No," Ziva said before I could answer. "But we will want to speak with your employer."

"Hey, hey, hey," he said defensively. "This is a totally legal business—"

"Never said it wasn't," I said. Creepy? Yes. Obnoxious? Yes. Illegal? No. "Could I get a business card? Thanks." I took the card and he booked down the pathway, probably figuring there wasn't going to be a tip. (Did _anyone_ tip him?) I looked at the card and rolled my eyes. "Cute. 555-6438. Or, as they note, 555-OH F U." Ziva just shook her head.

Agent Kirkaby had checked the van thoroughly and hovered nearby, weapon casually drawn and at the ready. When the delivery van squealed out of the driveway, he holstered his weapon and joined us on the porch. "Yep. Figured it was something charming," he said, looking down at the roses. Ziva and I looked at each other, then back at him. "I know _Say It With Flowers_—I was a customer of theirs." Ziva and I exchanged another look—this one 'Hunh?' Bruce Kirkaby is one of those "nice guys" you hear about and rarely meet. _He _sent dead roses to someone? He caught our look and laughed. "My ex shipped me a really ugly cactus along with a card reading "SIT ON IT!" Still have that cactus." He gave us a wry smile. "Named it after the ex-wife." Ah.

While Ziva called Gibbs on her cell phone, I phoned Autopsy. Ducky was less than amused when I told him what had happened. "Dead roses? _Dead roses?_" he roared.

"Hey, _any_ cut roses are dead," I said flippantly. I was whistling in the dark.

"This is _not funny_!"

"Honey—we're fine," I reassured him.

"No… we're not," he sighed morosely. "Not until Mary Hanlan is behind bars."

The holstered gun, with me in the house from morning 'til night, was a light pressure in the small of my back. _Or dead…_ "We're safe, honey. We have Ziva, we have Potter, we have Avery, we have Kirkaby. Not to mention Suzy Sureshot and your one and only wife, who does better than the average Imperial Stormtrooper."

That made him laugh—a little, anyway. "Yes. Remind me not to anger you while you're armed."

"Ha."

I took Allie out of baby jail and let her burble into the phone for a bit. Ducky and I made smushy noises until he was interrupted by a call from Agent Mannfield saying they had a crime scene to visit; he sighed and I promised to keep some ribs for him if he ran late. (He threatened to bring his work home with him, rather than miss Suzy's ribs. Eww.) As we hung up, I realized we were getting far too adept at pretending.

"Probably worthless as a clue to Mary Hanlan's whereabouts," Ziva said, carrying the box and following me into the kitchen. "Too many people have handled it."

Suzy glanced up from the sauce she was stirring on the stovetop. "Ah! Flowers from Dr. Mallard? How sweet."

"Not exactly," I snorted. "Mary Hanlan sent them." She gasped and stopped stirring and Agent Avery jumped out of her chair. "Complete with a 'sorry for your loss' sympathy card."

"What a bitch!" Suzy said, hands on hips. (I love her.)

"Gibbs is sending Tony to retrieve them," Ziva said. "If there is _anything_ to be found—Abby will find it." Not bragging, just stating a simple fact. "And he wants her to start on it immediately."

"Hey. We could, you know… take a road trip? Take them to the Yard? It would be faster than a round-trip for Tony," I said glibly.

Ziva cocked her head. "And it would give you a chance to see Dr. Mallard in person and make sure he's all right."

"Well…"

"Cassandra…" She put a hand on my arm and Allie reached over and patted it, making Ziva smile. "You are safer _right here_. We are in a contained environment. The moment you step outside, outside influences come into play. Some innocent act can cause—"

I sighed. "The butterfly effect, yeah, yeah, yeah…"

"I understand. You are going stirring crazy." She caught my look. "Stirring crazy?"

"Stir crazy."

"Ah."

"And… yes." I shifted Allie to my other hip and, when Ziva held out her hands, handed her over. "I mean, let's not pretend this is a tea party."

Cecelia Avery smiled faintly. "Don't tell your mother-in-law it's not." After grumbling and griping because Charlie and her mothers weren't in residence, Victoria reluctantly went with what she had. And what she had was a new audience for her stories. Suzy and I often had to distract her when her tales started getting too close to "oh, god, Ducky will _never_ live this down at work" range, but most of the time she was happy to oversee the cookies and sandwiches and pastries have me pour tea. Word got around that Mrs. Mallard would grudgingly accept women dressed in slacks—but if you wore a skirt, by gum your knees better be covered. Most of the female agents opted for slacks.

"I'm sorry, it's just…" I sighed and plopped into a kitchen chair. "She's out there. Where? Nobody has a clue. She left the halfway house and totally disappeared. She had a job arranged for her—"

Avery nodded. "Stock clerk at an arts-and-crafts store. Never showed up. Her address listed was the halfway house and the one she told the crafts store that she was going to move into?" She gave a sarcastic snort. "Her ex-husband's place. Don't see _that_ happening."

"But how can someone just _disappear_ like that?" I said, frustrated.

"Ted Kaczynski?" she said.

"Okay, but—she did not look like she's been holed up in a cabin for twenty days let alone twenty years. Her hair was clean and styled, she was wearing a nice outfit, nice shoes—she… fit right in around here…"

"She has no bank accounts. She has no assets. Beyond her ex-husband and her remaining son, she has no family…" Avery continued.

"None alive, anyway," I said morosely. "Maybe she's doing a Norman Bates, got her son propped up in a chair…"

Ziva looked at me sharply. "What did you say?"

"Norman Bates? You know, _Psycho_?"

"No, no… something you said about her clothes, that they fit right in…?"

I nodded. "Nice clothes. Nicer than what I normally wear." I thought for a moment. "Kinda… Margaret Thatcher. Queen of England."

"Tiara?" Suzy joked. I could tell she was still rattled by the roses.

"No—kinda tweedy, twinset-y?"

"Something… an older woman might wear?" Ziva prodded.

I thought a minute and nodded slowly, then nodded more firmly. "Yeah… yeah, something Mrs. Broward or Mrs. McKirk might wear." (Mother leans toward one-piece housedresses. They make her look dowdy, in my opinion, but she likes them so what the heck.) "Thinking back on it, it didn't really fit her. It didn't look like something she normally wore, and it was a little snug, too. It didn't really make an impression at the time, but thinking back… I don't think those were her clothes."

Ziva handed Allie back to me, flipped her cell phone and punched a button. "McGee. Does Mary Hanlan have any older female relatives living? Mother? Aunt? Or—does _Mister_ Hanlan have any older female relatives?" She listened, face impassive. "When?" More listening. "Cassandra thinks Mary Hanlan was wearing borrowed clothing, clothing belonging to an older woman."

"It was high quality, not Wal-mart," I added.

"Good quality clothing, upper middle—hmm." She looked up. "Fred Hanlan's mother passed away this past year. The name did not come up on a first search because she had remarried after being widowed. He inherited her house, the furnishings…" She reached over to grasp my arm. "She lived in Belmont."

"Belmont," I repeated. She nodded. "Belmont… Virginia." She nodded again. "Belmont… Virginia… as in twenty-five minutes away?" I tried not to screech, but couldn't help but hold Allie tighter. She made a squawk of protest. "_That Belmont_?"

Ziva nodded. "Gibbs is getting a search warrant; he has local police on the way to cruise the area, report if they see any signs of someone living there."

"This—could be _over_?"

"We can hope."

I felt almost gleeful as I went about the house doing unneeded chores. I was home every day. Other than going out on the range with Ziva, I was _home every day_. Nothing needed cleaning or organizing, but if I sat down for one more game of solitaire on the computer, I was going to go berserk. So instead I reorganized the bookshelves. Twice. Rearranged the living room furniture. (Which was fine until Ducky came home very late and didn't turn on the lights for fear of waking us. He smacked his shin on the coffee table. We woke up.) Now I kept myself occupied reorganizing the baby's room. (_She_ wouldn't stumble into her crib and scare the dogs.)

By the time DiNozzo arrived to pick up the box of dead roses, Mother was awake and delighted to see another face she sort of recognized. No way was he leaving without joining us for tea! He put on his game face and joined us all in the living room and was overjoyed to see that a fresh batch of butterscotch walnut cookies was included in the offerings. And brownies. And white chocolate mint crisps. "Chicken curry sandwiches?" He was almost drooling.

So instead of duck in, grab the roses, duck out, he stayed. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Half hour. Then his phone rang.

He checked the screen and flinched. "Gibbs." He opened his phone, stepping away from the group. "Yeah, Boss!" He listened (probably, "Where the hell are you?") and started to say, "On my w—" and cut off. His frat boy smile dropped off. "Nothing? How long?" He listened, then moved the phone away. "Someone was at the house recently. Hanlan is paying the utilities on the place to keep it open, doesn't want to sell the place. But the utility companies say there's actually been _use_ the past month. But—nobody was inside when McGee and Walinski got there."

I let out a deep breath. Damn.

"Yeah, Boss. I— Yeah, Boss." His face was impassive. "Sure. No problem." He tossed his phone to Ziva and, catching my eye, gave a tiny head jerk toward the kitchen.

Murmuring, "Be right back," I handed a brownie-covered baby to Suzy and slipped from the room. I waited until the door was shut behind us and said, "You're scaring me. I've never seen you look this serious. _What's wrong_?"

He took my elbows and moved me to sit on one of the kitchen chairs. I was _really_ starting to flip out. "I didn't want to scare Ducky's mom," he said quietly. "You know—sometimes she doesn't understand what's going on." I jerked my head in a spastic series of nods. "Ducky—" He seemed to steel himself. "The wagon didn't arrive at the scene, they figured Palmer got lost again—it was found, run off the road. Jimmy Palmer, he's shot, so is Ted Boorman, Ducky's shadow, they're both in surgery—"

I had to force the word out. "Ducky?"

"Sandy… _Ducky's missing._"


	4. Chapter 4

Note: chapters 5 and 6 will not be up until sometime next week **at best.** I am finally moving at the end of this week and it will be quite a bit of work. Sorry for the delays for this, "My Life" updates and anything else; will be back as soon as I can. AK

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR**

There was one 'the good news is…' –and _only_ one. Because Palmer and Boorman being shot and Ducky being missing were kept way under the radar, we didn't have ZNN and the others camped on our doorstep.

Which means I wouldn't be arrested for homicide when a newscaster shoved a microphone in my face demanding I share how it felt to have my husband kidnapped by a homicidal maniac.

I should have been in hysterics… but I wasn't.

There was an almost spooky calm around me. The monster had come out of the shadows. It had made its move.

_Now what?_

NCIS combed through Mary's elegant flophouse like they were looking for a clue the size of a pinhead. Every agent they could spare was there, looking for something, _anything_.

And finding _nothing_.

There were some hesitant suggestions that Mary had hit her target, that the protection detail be totally pulled. Gibbs put an end to that, pronto. He had the same feeling I did—Mary Hanlan was in this for a very Biblical revenge. Ducky was undoubtedly alive—but just as she watched her son slit his throat rather than return to prison, she was going to make Ducky watch while his daughter died. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a child for a child.

Not on my watch. Not on _Gibbs'_ watch.

Gibbs was confident enough that Allie and I were Mary's focus that he did downgrade the detail on Mother and Suzy and suggested (insisted) that they decamp to Ev and Lily's along with one agent—just in case. Allie and I would be alone at the house, a tasty target.

Well—not _quite_ alone.

Ziva remained behind when the other agents escorted Mother and Suzy to Kalorama (along with dinner—I sure as hell didn't have an appetite, and the ribs gave them a smooth reason for visiting the girls who were now 'miraculously' out of quarantine). Ziva badgered me into eating macaroni and cheese—she appealed to my guilt. ("When Ducky comes home and finds you weak from hunger and discovers _I_ was on duty—well, I have heard tales of his temper and I have _no_ desire to see it in person.") And it _was_ entertaining watching Allie eat her share; apparently macaroni and cheese is alive and must be killed before being consumed. She would make a fist and pound the bejeezus out of the pasta, flattening it against the plastic plate… then carefully peel it off and aim it toward her mouth. ("Do all children do that? My sister did. I found it… odd at the time. Now I find it amusing." Just… amusing? Really? I'd've never guessed from the way she almost fell off her chair, laughing to the point of tears.)

We made it through the night. Safety in numbers, the three of us stayed in the (locked) master suite. And after bunking with Ziva… I will _never_ bitch about Mother's snoring again.

Morning dawned. No word about Ducky. My nerves were about to fail completely.

"We have to force her hand." Gibbs' voice warbled from the speaker on Ziva's cell phone.

That sounded ominous. "How?" I managed to get out.

Silence. "Sandy…"

Oh, _shit_. He usually calls me Mrs. Mallard, just as a joke. 'Sandy?' Sandy is bad news.

"I want you to leave the house, like you're going to the shop. I want—" He drew in a breath. "I want you to be a target."

My heart went triple time. I couldn't get out a word.

"We don't have an agent would could convincingly portray you from anything closer than a hundred yards."

"Allie?" I managed to get out. Barely.

"Peanut is going to be one thousand per cent safe," he said, so firmly and confidently that I burst into tears. Ziva slipped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. "Abby is bringing something over as we speak."

"Abby? Why Abby? And what is she bringing?"

"She's bringing you… a baby."

Okay, it's official. Leroy Jethro Gibbs has lost his marbles—aggies, puries, shooters and stripes. "_What?_"

He actually laughed. "A friend of Abby's teaches at a school with a huge dropout rate." (So?) "Teen parents." (You _must_ be joking. Muffy wants the night off from being a mommy and is willing to loan her kid out to be bait for a psychotic murderer? Ye gods and little fishes.) "They have these baby dolls that look, sound, act like the real thing. You don't realize it's a doll until you're right next to it."

Comes the dawn. "So… we replace Allie with this doll…"

"Right. Abby will also have Special Agent Parmenter hiding in the back seat. She'll sneak in the house in case Mary—or someone working with Mary—is watching. She'll stay with Allie, Ziva will make a big production when she leaves with Abby, you park the 'baby' in the van—"

"And become a sitting Mallard."

"Pretty much, yeah."

Allie will be safe. Mother and Suzy are safe. If I play target, Ducky might be found—

Screw that. Ducky _will_ be found. "When will Abby get here?"

"Oh-seven-hundred. That will give you time to put on a show, get to town…"

It was just past six. "Gibbs—" My voice faltered and failed.

"Sandy," he said gently. "_We. Will. Get. Him. Back._ I swear it."

Intellectually I knew that was something he couldn't promise. The hell with intellect. This is his best friend and my husband. Gibbs _will_ find him… or there will be hell to pay.

Abby arrived in a fleet vehicle, not her usual hearse or hot rod. All I can say is… it did _not_ fit her. _At all_.

Even when she's quiet, Abby attracts attention. This morning she was hunting for attention. "Sandeeeeee!" she squealed, clomping up to the door. She was carrying a giant teddy bear with… _fangs?_ "It's a sehlat," she laughed. I looked blank. "_Star_ _Trek_? Vulcan teddy bear?"

"Oh!" I should have known that. I grew up watching the show. My brain is clearly overloaded.

"Timmy saw this online and said Allie just HAD to have this—" She stood by the door, dancing the bear for my amusement and approval—and distraction of others. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Christine Parmenter slip from the back door Abby had left open and creep past the retaining wall to the kitchen door, where Ziva was waiting to let her in.

"Let me get that door," I said, hurrying to the car. Abby kept up an inane line of chatter until we were inside the house and the door was shut.

Allie caught sight of the sehlat (almost as tall as Mommy) and screeched in glee. Abby took a few minutes to introduce them, then pulled open her you-could-stuff-a-body-in-it purse.

Oooh, bad description. From the bag she removed a doll that was so lifelike it scared me. I mean, I _knew_ it wasn't real, but—damn!

Abby ran upstairs and came back with one of Allie's playsuits, bootie shoes and, ha, a diaper. "Long sleeves and legs, the more the doll is covered the more real it looks," she said, dressing it.

"A diaper?" I snorted. "Carrying things a bit far?"

She gave me a smirk. "Nope." She pulled out a key fob and pressed a button—and the doll began to wriggle and make noises. "Once the teacher turns it on, it runs 24/7 for two weeks. The kids can't turn it off, only the teacher can. I'll let you have the remote so you don't have to take care of two kids at night."

I stared at the fob with on and off buttons. "Wow. Wish real kids came with this."

Abby sat the baby down on the carpet near Allie, who abandoned the sehlat and crawled over to investigate her new playmate. The doll had light strawberry curls, just like Allie. It was truly unnerving. Allie was fascinated with the baby, even when it started to cry. Abby had a bottle of water at hand and stuck it in the doll's mouth. "You have three minutes to start feeding it—they figure in real life, you'd have to warm a bottle or fix the food. Longer than three minutes and it won't shut up for an hour."

"Now, _that's_ just like the real ones," I said drily.

"And the computer chip tracks how long it took Mommy or Daddy to feed the baby, change the baby—that's why I got a diaper, it actually pees—if they got frustrated and shook the baby—"

"Wow."

"Convinces a lot of teeny boppers they are _not_ ready for parenthood. Teen pregnancy dropped fifteen per cent the first year."

"I don't doubt it."

Christine had been at the house several times during the past couple of weeks, knew where everything was, Allie's routine—and Allie liked her. (It helps that she's Auntie Chris to about twenty nieces and nephews.) Allie and I showed Ziva and Abby to the door and they made a big show of saying farewell; Chris and I went over some detailed instructions from Gibbs and McGee, Chris took Allie upstairs… and I got ready to leave.

I must have stood at the kitchen door for five minutes, literally shaking, scared to step outside.

_What if Mary pegs this as a scam?_

_What if Mary is planning a remote revenge? Shoot us, torture Ducky by playing the video over and over?_

_What if we're wrong? What if Mary doesn't give a rat's ass about mental anguish? What if Ducky is dead and we're next, all she wants is the streets to run red with the blood of revenge?_

_What if Mary isn't even watching?_

I took a deep breath and let it out. I grabbed my purse and Allie's bag—and sucked in another deep breath. I took hold of the doorknob, glaring at my shaking hand. _Get with the program_, I snapped mentally. _This is the performance of your life._

_And Ducky's._

I smacked the garage door remote, walked out the door and plastered a smile on my face. "Marezy dotes and dozey dotes and little lamzey divey," I sang to the squirming "baby" in my arms. "A kiddley divey too, wooden you? Now. Do you know what that silly thing _really_ means? They're talking about _animals_ and _what they like to eat_," I said brightly, heading for the van. "Mares eat oats and does eat oats," I enunciated. "And little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you? " I propped the "baby" on my hip and opened the side door to the van. "And that's just silly. People don't eat ivy, do they?" I fussed with getting the doll into the car seat; it was just as squirmy as the real thing. "What _do_ people eat? Oh, all sorts of things…"

The mechanical baby makes noises—crying, screeching, cooing, babbling. But it doesn't respond to your verbal stimuli. Oh, well; sometimes Mother doesn't, either. I finished buckling the robobaby into Allie's car seat (Wouldn't it be a hoot to get stopped by a cop today of all days? He or she could eat out for a month on the story. "Wait till I tell you what I saw on a traffic stop Thursday…"), threw myself behind the wheel and backed out.

The drive in was without incident.

Valerie arrived just before 9:00 and came running in the back door. "Your van! You're here! Everything's fixed! Sandy! Where's my baby?" She tore into my office before I could stop her.

I barely got in the door just in time to avert disaster. Valerie was frozen in place, staring at the playpen in the corner. "Sandy…?" she whispered, looking like she was going to pitch a grade B horror flick scream any second.

I grabbed her arm and gave her a condensed version of what had happened. Her eyes grew wider and wider.

"Don't pull an Aunt Jemima on me." Store code for 'don't flip like a pancake.' I held onto her forearms and gave her a little shake. "Everything needs to look normal. This is our only chance to find Ducky." I was trying not to think about Ducky, where he was, what might be happening. If I thought about him… I was going to lose it completely. If I didn't think about him… I _might_ be able to help him.

She nodded, still transfixed by the "baby." "If this weren't so scary… it would be… neat," she blurted out.

"Yeah." Maybe when it's all over, I can sell it to _Law and Order._

We put a sign on the office door, "cranky baby, do not disturb" to keep any customers out, and took the employees aside one at a time as they arrived. They had known my absence was due to a fruitcake from an old case of Ducky's putting in an appearance; hearing what had happened yesterday (my god, it was only _yesterday_), there were serious questions if NCIS needed deputies.

Time inched by.

To keep up the pretense, I stayed in the office most of the time doing paperwork and internet price research while taking care of the "cranky baby."

By late afternoon, _I_ was the cranky baby. I was never good at playing with dolls as a child. My Barbie never had a fashion show or went shopping with Midge; no, she pretended to be Nellie Bly or Mata Hari or Susan B. Anthony. (No wonder I thought I could get away with my Nancy Drew shenanigans a year and a half ago.) I never got into the feeding-burping-pushing a stroller show until I had a real one of my own. (Babysitting was a job, not a desire.) This doll was becoming tedious as well as a little creepy.

The fact that I had heard _nothing_ from Gibbs made it worse. I'm sure he was operating under the "no news, no need to call" theory, but it was driving me crazy. I finally broke down about 4:00 and called.

He was pissed—but not at me for calling. He was pissed at the total lack of information and results. "_Nobody_ can disappear that completely," he growled.

I wasn't stupid enough to say "Ted Kaczynski." And I knew that, yes, people can go totally off-grid. And I knew that Gibbs knew that.

I also knew that if it were anyone but Ducky, he'd be able to say that fact.

"We're going through the mother's house. Again. Mary's ex and other freak son are being _very_ cooperative—"

Leroy Jethro Gibbs on the warpath? I'll bet they're cooperative.

"That Marquis de Sade playground in Adelphi has been shut down since oh-five—"

"The what? Where?"

"The funeral home. Where Ducky was held?"

"Holy shit!" I blurted out. "I _know_ that place! I didn't connect the name, I thought it was spelled differently, I—" Oh, my effing god, I had attended funerals and memorials there over the years. I wanted to throw up.

"It's empty. They had all sorts of hiding places, couldn't find a damned thing."

It took sheer willpower not to burst into screaming, sobbing, hysterical tears. "Gibbs—"

"Sandy, _we will find him_."

Before or after I have a nervous breakdown?

(Before or after I become a widow?)

"Go home," he said, not unkindly. "Go home, hug your little girl, tell her funny stories about her daddy—"

I was half-propped against the wall; my head slammed back with my gasping sob. Tears flew everywhere, but they weren't caused by the lightning bolt of pain in my skull. I don't want to tell _her_ stories about _him_. I want _him_ to tell stories about _himself_.

I know it makes Gibbs uncomfortable as hell when people cry. But I couldn't stop it. And he didn't try.

"Sorry," I finally gulped.

"I know," he said quietly. "_I know_." He's not always what he claims to be, a heartless bastard. Not today, anyway.

I don't remember saying our good-byes, but the handset was turned off, I was sitting behind my desk staring at Pyewacket who was sitting a few feet from the playpen, watching the baby who looked kind of like Allie but clearly wasn't, and I found myself avoiding the photograph on my desk: Ducky, dozing in his favorite chair, Allie in a baby sling, snuggled against his chest, sound asleep. When would she see her daddy again? _Would_ she see her daddy again?

_Oh, god._

_I have to get out of here._

I told Valerie I was going home; fortunately she didn't try to hug me, or I would have fallen apart completely. I started to head for the back door; she squeaked, "Sandy!" very softly and looked meaningfully toward my office.

Oh, _shit_. It would have looked really good to leave my "baby" behind. Think someone _might_ notice?

I collected the doll and Allie's bag, grabbed my purse and tried to pull myself together. _Gotta play the part…_

"Hope Miss Grumpy Face feels better!" Geoff called. (Talk about playing a part…!)

"That's two of us!" I called back. The doll was in "light fussy" mode, wriggling and squirming and making truly obnoxious noises. No wonder the teen pregnancy rate dropped.

Ziva would have the night shift again after working all day; fortunately, she's just as deadly asleep as she is awake (snoring notwithstanding). Plus she would give me all the dope on what had happened.

I shut the side door, climbed in and sat there, staring at the wall, engine idling. _Ducky… Ducky, where __**are**__ you?_I squeezed my eyes shut, clutching the steering wheel in a death grip. Letting out a sharp, frustrated breath, I slammed the van into reverse and hit the gas, regretting it when I hit the speed bump full force. "Baby" let out a screech they probably heard clear back to the Navy Yard and I flinched; when they pull the microchip, I'm pretty sure I flunked the class.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Halfway home I remembered I had marketing to do; we were out of a dozen or more things, running low on even more and Foot had decided the cat food I'd stocked up on last month was no longer worthy of his attention. Pye was a little less picky; I'd take the flat of Sea Captain's Choice Cuts to the store and find something new for the bratty feline at home.

I muttered things for the list as I headed down Leesburg Pike. What for dinner? I was still disinclined to eat, but Ziva and Allie needed to be fed. Chicken? Ziva likes my Lemon-Almond chicken, and Allie—

—_cough—_

I broke out of my semi-reverie. _What the…?_

—_cough—_

The van was doing a gasping cough-buck-choke that did _not_ sound good. I looked at the gas gauge; 3/4 full. Great, _now_ what?

—_**cough**—_

"Shit!"

The van gasped asthmatically a few more times and I limped to the side of the road… where it conked out completely.

"_**No**__!_" I threw open the door, slammed it and stormed to the front of the van. Cussing a streak that would do Gibbs proud, I wrestled the hood open. "I spend a goddamned fortune keeping you in shape! You pick today to die on me? I hate you, I hate you, I _**hate**_ you!" I screamed as sporadic traffic whizzed by. Screaming didn't help one bit—but I felt better.

It only took a minute to expend my limited mechanical know-how. Ducky is the mechanic in the family; Lily and Ev are pretty handy, too. Me? I make sure to have my AAA card handy and the extended coverage paid at all times. Gas was full (enough, anyway), oil light hadn't popped on, battery cables were connected and clean, spark plug wires were firmly in place and the radiator overflow jug was fine. "You creep! You scum! You stupid, sucky, stinking, finking, freaking hunk of traitorous metal!"

I stomped, I kicked, I yelled, I screamed. Nothing helped. And nobody stopped. Calmer, now, I went to dig out my cell phone, call AAA… and prepare to wait an hour and a half for a tow.

Or not. Somebody _was_ stopping. A mildly beat up Toyota pulled past me and parked; from a distance, it looked like two women in the car. Sisterhood is a good thing. The driver carefully exited and made her way back to me. "Hey, there!" she called. "Out of gas?"

"No," I sighed in frustration as she came closer. "I have no idea what the problem is, I was going fine—then it went _huh—huh—huh—_" I huffed, sounding like a Bevis and Butthead episode. "Started gasping and made it here and just _died_." I wanted to cry. "I was about to call triple A and wait forever."

"Hmm." She stood up on her toes, peering this way and that. "Sounds like maybe your fuel line… or air filter…? Lemme see…"

I hovered near her. "Are you a mechanic?" I asked hopefully. I had grown up in a time when dads took care of the car and they passed the lore on to their sons, but rarely their daughters. My erstwhile rescuer was five or ten years younger than I and kind of (not to be rude) tough looking. Maybe she had picked up a few things from _her_ father.

"Kinda. Self-taught. Couldn't afford a 'real' mechanic," she said. "Hmm…" I was, as a former employee would have put it, as useful as tits on a bull when it comes to cars, but at least I could appear interested. "Looks good… looks okay… oh, _here's_ your problem!" I heard the car door shut; her companion was probably nervous, sitting in the car on her own, and coming to join us.

"Is it easy to fix?" I asked (again, hopefully).

"Oh, yeah!" she said almost dismissively. She poked around a little more. "Great big goober of paper stuck in the air intake—" She rattled off a paragraph of mechanic-ese; it went right over my head. She pulled out the 'goober' and held it up.

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" I burst out. (Could have been worse. Could have been a critter. Ray got a mouse stuck in some vital engine part once; it wasn't pretty.) "How the hell did that happen?"

"Ahhh…" she said, shaking her head. She put parts back together and slammed the hood. She tossed the ball of paper up in the air. "That's easy." She caught the ball and grinned at me. "I put it in there."

I stared at her blankly. "What?"

She shook her head. "Sissy said you were a dope." She looked over my shoulder. "You are _so_ right."

Chest tight, I turned around slowly, just _knowing_… and I was right.

Mary Hanlan stood with her hands on her hips and a smirk on her face. "Hello again, Mrs. Mallard. Let me introduce my sister, Debby."

/ / /

"It would be a lot easier to drive without a gun on me," I snapped, trying to mask my terror.

"Ohh… I'm _so_ sorry," Debby said, sickeningly sweet. She smiled sarcastically. "Deal with it, _Mommy_."

Not her first snarky comment about the baby in the back seat. Fortunately the "baby," strapped in Allie's car seat and covered with a light blanket, was in the corner farthest from view. When I started hauling a baby and two tons of infant paraphernalia as opposed to 50 boxes of books, I put the back seats back in the van. The doll was in sleep mode; from where we sat, it—_she_—looked like the real thing. I'm sure it's the only reason I was still alive.

"For someone who's been dead a decade, you look pretty perky." Conversation. Something. _Anything_.

She gave a derisive snort. "Caught my loser husband cheating. _Again_. We got into it—_again_. This time I'd had enough. I shot him."

I wanted conversation? I got conversation. She sounded as casual saying "I shot him" as anyone else would sound asking for the TV remote. More, even. She would be just as casual about shooting me, a total stranger. I almost groaned; my Virginia CHP wasn't recognized in DC, so I couldn't carry a weapon to and from the store. The .45 I practiced every day with for weeks was sitting at home, locked up. Useless.

Just as useless as I was.

"Sissy had seen this woman near the funeral home, she worked at the Qwik-i-mart down the way. She looked a lot like me. They hire losers and lowlifes, nobody would miss her," she said with a shrug.

"You—you _killed_ her?" I blurted out.

She looked at me like I had the IQ of a potted plant. "Duh. If I wasn't dead with dear ol' David, they were going to hunt me down and put me in jail. _Someone_ had to be dead in there. Sure wasn't going to be _me_."

Mary had used a John Doe car crash victim to take the place of her son, so he could go into hiding. I thought _that_ was sick and depraved. Wow. Turns out the family has even lower depths to sink to.

_Oh, shit_.

"—had to make it look good. So Mary clonked her one, we took her to my place, gave her a good beating, made sure her hands were good 'n burned before we torched the place. Mary ID'd the body, anyway, they didn't do much investigation—"

My hands went cold and I gripped the steering wheel hard, drifting toward the lane next to me.

"Watch it, stupid!"

"Sorry," I said automatically, pulling back. I've read and watched enough murder mysteries to know the drill. Someone starts confessing to crimes…? _They don't expect you to live to testify against them_.

"—full of stupid, stupid women. All I had to do was tell them my husband beat me, he was hunting me down, hide me, please—! They couldn't do enough. Suckers,' she said dismissively. "Once you get a good, fake ID, you can get anything. Buy a car—" She jerked her chin toward the Toyota Mary was driving ahead of us. "Rent a place. Get a job…" She started nodding her head in time. "_Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na, Ahh, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip, Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum, get a job, Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na_," she sang.

_Crackers. The whole family is frigging **crackers**._

I followed Mary off the main road and down a series of left-right-right-left-left-I'm getting dizzy-right-left turns to a not great/not totally skuzzy area of town. (What town? No clue. The only reason I was sure we were still in Virginia was we hadn't driven long enough to hit a border. Anybody following me or tracking me would be challenged. No way would I be able to tell anyone how to find this place.)

(If I lived to talk about it.)

We pulled up in front of a sort of nice, nondescript house. A little shabby, but not covered in graffiti or trashed beyond use. It looked innocent. Inviting, even. Talk about looks being deceiving…

"Get the kid. And don't try anything stupid. I don't care if I put down a couple of neighbors along with you. I'm moving out anyway."

_That'll improve the property values_.

Debby popped out and ran around the front of the van to yank my door open. "Move it."

_I'm dead._ I hurried to the side door and leaped in. _If I try to hide, she'll come in and drag me out, dead or alive. If I bring the doll out, she'll figure out I outflanked them—and I'll be a past tense._

The doll was starting to "wake up." Not making much noise; a good thing—the movements are relatively realistic but the noises are beyond fake. At least, to me they are; but I'm around a real baby 24/7. Maybe someone unaccustomed to children might be faked out. But the wriggling and random arm and leg movements looked real… or so I hoped.

When I climbed back out, "baby" wrapped and held close, Debby was standing on the grass, arms folded. She moved her hand just enough that I could see the glint of her gun. Mary was already at the porch, opening the front door; I kept my distance from Debby and scurried inside, heading to the far side of the room.

"Welcome, Mrs. Mallard," Mary said with a faint sneer. "Can I get you some tea?" she asked with wide innocent eyes.

"Uh, no thanks," I stammered, keeping my distance.

"I'm sure you think I'm a monster," she said in the same ingenuous, almost shocked voice.

_Oh, you aren't even __**close**__ to what I think you are_. I kept my mouth shut.

"They killed my boy!" she burst out. "My beautiful, wonderful boy! They tormented him, they hounded him, they drove him to his death—"

(So psycho son was her "beautiful boy?" Gee, here's a clue why the other son has some issues.)

"He was a good boy! He was my angel baby!"

(He was an attempted rapist and a murderer several times over. Qualifications for angelhood have slipped, big time.)

"Your husband!" she yelled, stabbing her finger toward me. I held the doll closer and took a couple of steps back, stopping when I bumped into the front wall—_hard_. "He had it out for my boy!"

"I'm sorry," I said automatically.

"You should be!" Her eyes narrowed. "You _will_ be." She took a step forward and I _really_ wished I could back up. "Your husband will pay for what he did. You'll pay for what he did. You're _all_ guilty."

I wasn't stupid enough to say 'what the hell did _I_ do?" This woman was completely bonkers.

"And you both will _suffer_ like _I suffered_ watching my sweet boy _kill himself_! Why should your brat be alive and my angel baby is _dead_?"

Oh, shit.

"Take it!" she snapped to her sister. "Take it—and take it downstairs! I'm going to make that doctor wish he was dead over and over and _then he will be_!"

Debby advanced on me, hands out… gun still in one hand.

"_**No!**_" I screamed with every atom of my vocal cords.

Scared the pudding out of both of them. I took advantage of the off-centered moment. I grabbed the doll by the ankles and swung for Debby's right hand, connected and knocked the gun into home run orbit. Debby screamed in pain. Mary screamed in 'oh-my-god-she-used-her-baby-as-a-baseball-bat' shock. I screamed in 'you-might-kill-me-you-might-kill-Ducky-but-I-will-effing-well-kill-you-too-bitch' fury. It was loud. It was ugly.

Built to withstand the abuse of neglectful teen "parents," the doll stayed in one piece. From the _crunch_ and the scream, Debby's hand wasn't so sturdy. Her gun went flying into the dining room, with me right behind it.

Mary was fast.  
I was faster.  
Mary was pissed.  
I left her in the dust.

I snagged the gun, did a tuck and roll under the dining table I couldn't repeat if offered a million bucks to do so and jumped to my feet on the far side of the table. "Get back!" I screamed, holding the gun out with both hands in solid stance.

"Oh, please," Mary scoffed. "Like you'd—"

I fired. I was a little off my mark; I aimed for her upper chest, hit her shoulder. But it _did_ hit. And it _did_ hurt. At least her shriek made it sound like it hurt. "Where is my husband?" I said evenly. Coldly.

"You bitch!"

I fired again. This time I hit her kneecap. And I was aiming for it, too.

Most of her words were lost in an inarticulate howl of pain and rage. Finally she managed to scream, _**"Do something!**_" to her sister as she worked to drag herself to a crouched-over standing position.

I walked over to where Debby sat huddled on the ground, nursing her shattered wrist. She stared at me, wide-eyed. "Backup ammo?" I asked politely. She didn't say anything… but shifted minutely in unconscious response. "Pull it out."

"_**DEBRA!**_" Mary screamed.

I put Debby in my sights. "I will," I said simply. No fool, she; she wriggled around and used her left hand to maneuver two magazines out of her back pockets. "Push them over. Good girl," I said when she complied. She glared, looking so much like her sister it was disgusting. "Wanna know what my last score was on the range?" I asked conversationally. She didn't answer. "I promise… if you so much as twitch…" I pocketed the first magazine. "I'll blast you…" I put the second magazine in the other hip pocket. "Straight to Mars. And I've noticed your gun pulls a little to the left." I waggled it. "So I might be trying just to injure you…" I took aim. "And… oops." I leaned over, even though I wasn't close enough to really close a gap. "_Don't… __**fuss**__… with me_," I whispered.

She clearly knew she had pushed the wrong person too far. She sat on the floor, cradling her arm, not moving as I turned back to her sister.

"Where's Ducky?" I asked calmly.

"Fuck you!" she screamed. Funny; that's what Gibbs said her confession had been when they first arrested her. "You'll never—"

Her words choked off in a scream as I took aim. The scream rose sharply in volume and pitch as I planted another shot in her right thigh. "Don't be a baby. It's just the fleshy part." I cocked my head. "I can shoot you as many times as I need to. _Where is my husband?_"

"He's dead," she spat.

"Nope. You wouldn't skimp on the chance to torture him, make him watch you kill his child. You even said so. Now. _Where is he?_"

"Go to hell." She ended with a groan. It hurt. Good.

"Nah, that's _your_ ticket. Go to hell? Hey, you'll be back with your angel baby!"

That was calculated to make her love me. Her screeched words were incomprehensible, something only channelers or Pentecostal preachers prone to talking in tongues could understand.

After a couple of minutes, her howls wound down to choice cuss words screamed over and over. "Where is he?" I demanded since she had returned to a semblance of English.

"You'll _never find_ _him!_ If you do find him, _he will be dead!_ I set a timer with a scalpel, it will slit his throat, just like my baby did to himself—" She was raving (even drooling)—but making way too much sick sense. I remembered Gibbs' carefully edited description of finding Ducky on a mortuary table, trocar in his throat and blood draining—

Oh.

Shit.

"At six o'clock, _he will be dead!_ He'll be _dead!_ My baby will be revenged!"

"That's _**a**_venged, you stupid cow," I couldn't help but say. I caught the clock on the VCR: 5:57.

Oh.

_Shit_.

"He won't get a chance to ruin another innocent life! He'll be dead, _dead_, and even if _you_ don't die, you'll _pay_, you'll suffer—"

I fired.

Mary hit the wall and slid to the floor. "F—"

I was pretty sure what she was going to say. I fired again. She twitched when the bullet hit, but said nothing. Her eyes stared at me, blank and with no fire. Dead.

Oooooh. She _twitched_ when that bullet hit. Maybe she's not dead yet. I stepped closer and fired again; again she twitched.

I emptied the magazine, ejected it and popped in a new one.

"Jesus Christ!" I glanced toward Debby. "Stop shooting! _She's dead!_"

"Just want to be sure." Four more shots. Each time her body jerked; oh, gosh, she _might_ still be alive…

"You are fucking _insane!_" Debby yelped. She shut up when I turned and gave her a cold look.

"Pot? Kettle?" I aimed the gun at her. "Your chance." I waited about five seconds for an answer. Silence. "_Where is my husband?_" I screamed.

I could hear a minor ruckus outside but didn't pay attention—not until I heard a voice yell, "Stand down!"

_Gibbs._

"Gibbs!" I yelled.

The front door opened slowly. "Mrs. Mallard…?" he said cautiously. I could see the faintest movement; he was holding his gun up, ready to pounce and blow someone to pieces. "What's your sitrep?"

"My… what?"

"What's the situation in there?"

"Mary Hanlan is dead. Well, pretty sure she's dead, maybe I should shoot her again, just to be sure. Her sister is sitting on the floor, _about to tell me where my husband is_," I said in a louder voice at the end.

"We clear?" he asked, still sounding guarded.

"Yeah, yeah—oh, Shanghai! Shanghai!"

He hurried inside, gun still drawn, the rest of his team right behind. "For the record—today's word was _rollercoaster._"

"Oh. Sorry. I forgot." Gibbs looked from Mary to Debby to me with a 'care to explain?' look. "Oh, Gibbs—let me introduce Mary Hanlan's little sister, Debby," I said, uber-polite. "Debby, this is Special Agent Gibbs. He arrested your sister's sorry ass four years ago. He gets to do the same for you. Nice family tradition."

"The only sister she had is dead."

"Wish it were true. No, Debs, here, was the practice run for Sonny Boy later on. She and Mary killed a convenience store clerk and left her with the body of her husband—whom she shot, by the way."

"This woman is nuts!" Debby burst out. Probably hoping to dilute the charges that would be brought against her. "She shot my sister _dead_—and then kept shooting her!"

Gibbs carefully walked over to Mary's body. I followed, a little perturbed by the fact that I had just killed someone and it didn't bother me a whit. Just a _little_. _Very_ little. "Nice job," he murmured.

"Good teacher," I said back in the same tone.

"Looks like self defense to me," he said loudly. He looked back at DiNozzo. "Cuff her," he said, jerking his head toward Debby.

DiNozzo yanked her to her feet, none too gently. "Careful," I said with a show of mock concern. 'I think I broke her wrist."

"Oh? How?" Gibbs asked.

"I, uh, hit her with the robobaby," I admitted.

DiNozzo snickered and Gibbs smiled. Just a hair. "Where's Ducky?"

"She said—" I blinked back tears. I didn't want to believe what Mary had said. I _couldn't_ believe what she had said. The clock read 6:02. "She said he's dead. We'd never find him, he'd be dead at six o'clock—"

Gibbs strode over to Debby. "I bet little sister knows where he is."

Gibbs has a gaze that can freeze water. Debby managed fifteen seconds of defiance—not bad; then she wilted. "Downstairs. Basement," she said in a defeated voice.

I started to bolt for the hallway, but Gibbs stopped me. "Let us go first."

"No—"

"Sandy—" He grasped my arms. "Let _us_… go _first_."

I stood, staring, watching the digital readout change. 6:03. 6:04. 6:05. Behind me I heard local police officers come in, talk with McGee and DiNozzo, then leave. Apparently _they_ had been the dust-up outside; they had responded to a neighbor calling in gunshots, and arrived just as NCIS's finest caught up with the tracking devices Christine and I had hidden in my purse, the doll, the van and my barrette. They had been following just enough behind that they could catch up fairly easily; they had actually passed by me when the van broke down. ("If you hadn't started moving soon, we would have come back," McGee reassured me.)

"Then the trackers started going berserk. You looked like a cabbie trying to milk the fare. Or the scene when Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman are wandering around in the desert on a blind camel—"

"You?" I actually laughed. "_You_… saw _Ishtar_?

It was DiNozzo's turn to look surprised. "Yeah… it's not as bad as people think…"

"_This action is no longer covert_—"

"_We are now overtly firing on two Americans and god knows who else. And they are armed to the teeth_!" he yelped.

Debby looked from DiNozzo to me then over at McGee. Clearly: _and they think I'M crazy?_

It was a distraction, a way to keep from thinking about what I just couldn't face. Until Gibbs comes back and says otherwise… Ducky's fine.

_Ducky's fine._

_Mary was too stupid to set a timer correctly._

_Ducky's fine._

_The clock is probably off._

_Ducky is FINE._

_Mary was lying._

_Ducky is fine, Ducky is __fine_, _Ducky is—_

—laughing?

"Ducky…?" My voice was a shaky gasp. Then: "DUCKY!" I almost teleported across the room and into the hallway.

He was dusty and dirty and rumpled and haggard and had dried blood on his face and was leaning heavily on Gibbs' arm while Ziva hovered just behind him and oh, god, he was the most wonderful sight I've ever seen.

"Oh—oh, _you!_" he laughed, abandoning Gibbs' arm to hug me. "Better than the average Imperial Stormtrooper by far!"

I clung to him, absolutely dizzy with relief. "That's me, the Annie Oakley of Reston." I hugged him and kissed him and kissed him and hugged him and kissed him a dozen times more for good measure.

"Or Babe Ruth. You—" He looked astonished and started to laugh again. "You used a _doll_ to disarm Mary's sister?"

"Yeah…" I glanced at the abandoned lump in the living room. "I hope I didn't break it. It's been awfully quiet…"

"I think it will definitely show signs of 'shaken baby syndrome.'"

"Abby borrowed that from a public school. It's going to cost a fortune to replace." Ducky was slumped over a bit to the point that we were almost eye-to-eye. I rested my forehead against his. "Worth every penny," I said fervently.

"Alexandra could have a playmate…"

"No way. That thing pees like a broken water pipe."

The man who gets up as frequently as I do in the middle of the night to assist someone else's call of nature just laughed. "So does Alexandra."

* * *

A/N: Any technical errors are mine and mine alone.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

It started right before April. March 16, not long after Mother's 101st birthday to be exact.

Ducky had come home early from work—_very_ early. I had planned to go to the store to sign for a huge shipment of gift items and spend the afternoon and evening to sort through, price and display them. He surprised me by coming home at 10:00. He worried me when he asked me to call Valerie and ask her to take care of the delivery. He scared the crap out of me when he took my hands and gravely said, "We need to talk."

I knew he had had some unusual cases over the years. Some had been weirder than chocolate covered pickles. Some had been flat out scary shit. That morning he told me about a case, about a family, that would have made Stephen King sleep with the lights on.

Even though he was sitting in front of me, warm, breathing, safe, alive… when he started describing Mary and Vincent Hanlan's plans to drain him of blood I all but leaped on him, hugging him hard, scared to let go. I had a sneaky feeling he was downplaying the horror.

"Don't tell me. She broke out of prison and is hunting you down?" _Please, please, don't say 'yes.'_

"Worse, in a way."

"Worse?" I squeaked.

"Her attorney is trying to have the verdict overturned. They're putting forth that she was the innocent dupe of Vincent Hanlan, that he forced her to do his bidding."

"Oh, _bullshit!_" I _do_ try to watch my language—especially since having Allie—but sometimes there is just one correct word for an occasion. "You were there, Gibbs—"

He shrugged lightly. "Patty Hearst and the SLA. Emotional and psychological abuse and control." He hugged me lightly. "I didn't tell you to scare you. I told you to prepare you. All of us—Jethro, Anthony, Timothy and I—will frequently be in court—"

"Not Ziva?"

"Oh, I'm sure she will join us, moral support and the Three Musketeers if nothing else. But she hadn't joined us at that time."

"Oh. Oh, yeah, that's right."

I pressed him—gently—for more details. I wouldn't say he refused to answer my questions so much as deflected them, but I was left with a whole bunch of holes to fill.

So right after Ducky left to go back to the Yard I called Gibbs.

I'm sure there was a part of Gibbs that said, 'Jeez, it's _his_ wife, let _him_ make the call of what she does or doesn't know.' But while Ducky was saying, 'I didn't tell you to scare you. I told you to prepare you.' Gibbs is a big believer in the more information you have, the better prepared you are. He had McGee send me the case files that anyone could access with a Freedom of Information Act request as well as the court transcript, saving me a trip to the courthouse and the processing fees. I looked at the kilobytes of data that were attached, called Valerie and told her I'd deal with the gift display tomorrow. Maybe. Then I asked Suzy for the more rare than hens' teeth babysitting job while I took my laptop upstairs to read in undistracted silence. When I explained the situation she went from "sure" to "I'll keep the natives quiet and bring you something to eat on a regular basis."

Even having grown up on classic horror movies and reading Poe and Lovecraft, the case notes flipped me out. The transcripts were tedious—real life court is nothing like _Law and Order_ or _Perry_ _Mason_; I ended up skimming a lot. By the time Ducky got home and I was innocently working on dinner with Suzy, I was well versed in the case they flippantly called "The Meat Puzzle" and had an up close and personal foray into the workings of the mind of a sexually deviant homicidal psychopath mother and son pairing.

The nightmares started that night.

I'm sure it was to protect me that Ducky suggested I stay away from court. But I knew that not knowing for sure, allowing my imagination to run amok, would be worse. Reluctantly he allowed me to go with them to court. (Later I found out that Gibbs said, "She has a right to be there. It's worse when you don't know." It's hard to believe that we had a really rocky start to our relationship (he was poised to arrest me for murder). The past three years have put him solidly in my corner—and there are few people better to have watching your back.)

I expected a crazed lunatic. A monster.

She looked so… _normal_. (Wednesday Addams, describing her Halloween costume, came to mind: "I'm a homicidal maniac. They look just like everyone else.") Looking normal, like the PTA mom down the street… that was probably her most dangerous weapon.

Over the weeks her lawyer paraded a half a dozen shrinks and PhD's touting how Vincent had controlled his mother, how he had emotionally abused and manipulated her. She sat there, eyes cast down toward the table, looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

Of course, the prosecutor had her own experts. Not to mention McGee. And DiNozzo. And Gibbs. And, star of the horror movie, Ducky.

And in a _very_ damning bit of testimony, her son and ex-husband took the stand against her, stating categorically that Mary was the one who called the shots in every aspect of their lives. Both were clearly scared witless to testify, but courageous enough to climb into the witness box several days in a row. It's the only time I saw even a flicker of emotion from her: she narrowed her eyes, tightened her lips and stared even harder at the table. I was surprised her eyes hadn't bored a hole through it.

Finally, after just over a month, the judge retired for the day to begin evaluating the evidence and testimony. We sat at a nearby restaurant, killing time.

"May not be today," Gibbs cautioned, stirring his coffee. We had exhausted every neutral topic at hand, finally facing the elephant in the room.

"There was a _lot_ of testimony," McGee said with a worried frown.

"Do you think he bought it?" I asked.

They all looked at each other. "Well…" DiNozzo hedged.

"It is the 'justice system,' dear. Sometimes…"

I stared at my mangled chocolate cake; just the idea that Mary Hanlan might go free was terrifying. I had had nightmare after nightmare since Ducky first told me about her. They only got worse as I sat through the testimony for the appeal trial. But… they changed. They started with Mary being set free. Mary suing us for the wrongful death of her son (and _winning_). Mary moving next door. Mary coming into the store, tormenting Pye out of eyesight until she got scratched and suing me into bankruptcy. Mary Hanlan at every turn.

But then they started to change, to morph…

One night I bolted out of bed and was halfway to Allie's room before I realized I _wasn't_ on the beach and I _hadn't_ seen Mary tie Ducky and Allie together and toss them into the ocean. Another night, I was sobbing so hard in my sleep Ducky woke up—and he can sleep through Mother's snoring. (I refused to tell him what Mary had been doing—but I was beginning to feel like I was living through a slasher movie marathon at night.)

About the time Ducky was ready to sedate me so I'd get more than two hours of sleep a night, things started to change…_again_. Mary was no longer the victor. Ducky was. Gibbs was. And, during more and more mental home horror movies, _I_ was. First it was just walking away and _**poof**__!_ she was gone like an evil genie. Then I bested her in court. Then I beat the living crap out of her. Then I shot her.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And I felt zero remorse. Okay, it was _just_ a dream. _Just_ make believe. If faced with shooting her to save my husband and child, I'd blow her to bits, I'm sure. But I'd have some guilt, some regret over taking the life of another person.

…wouldn't I?

I stared at my plate, using the bottom tine of my fork to gently pull through the frosting, making tiny chocolate whitecaps in the sea of buttercream fudge as I went through the granddaddy of 'em all nightmare I'd had the night before. _Wouldn't I_? Of course I would. If I had _no_ regrets, _no_ guilt, that would make me as evil as Mary Hanlan. As evil as her son.

…wouldn't it?

Gibbs' cell phone rang, startling all of us. "Gibbs." He listened for a moment, face impassive. "Thanks." He shut the phone and looked over all of us in turn. "Judge is back. With a verdict."

I was suddenly glad I hadn't had much to eat. Three hours. Is that fast? It's not a jury. Is that good, a sign that he knows she's a fruitloop but totally in control of her faculties? Or is it bad, that she's clearly a pawn of her evil son and needs to be set free?

It's a good thing they make you pass through a metal detector. After discovering Ducky does have a gun, I had asked Ziva to teach me how to shoot. I wasn't Olympic sharpshooter team material and Gibbs didn't have to worry about me coveting his "sniper" badge from Christmas… but I was hitting the target more than I was missing. Hitting Mary from my seat in the gallery would have been a snap.

_**All rise… be seated…**_

I divorced myself from the proceedings, listening _just enough_ that I was following along. If I listened too hard, followed too closely, and Mary was deemed not guilty… I would lose it. Totally. Instead I held tightly to Ducky's hand and stared at his lap. Charcoal gray slacks. Very tight weave. Every five threads or so was a thread that was half charcoal, half midnight blue. You didn't see the blue unless you were very, very close (such as when I replaced the broken zipper last fall), but the haunting image of blue makes his eyes—

_**Particularly disturbing are the report from Dr. Lester and the score from the PCL-R. Dr. Lester came to us from University of California, Davis, because she had absolutely no knowledge of Mary Hanlan or the crimes for which she was convicted. She would neither have an axe to grind nor…**_

PCL-R… I had run into that when organizing the stacks of paper next to Ducky's desk. The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, a set of twenty questions that show if someone is normal (or relatively so), a little maladjusted or a raving, antisocial psychopath. Scores from zero to forty, the higher the number, the worse you are. Over 25, warning bells go off. Over 30, it's Hannibal Lecter and Charlie Manson time. Mary scored a 36.

…_**thinly disguised attempt to shift the blame to someone who is dead and cannot speak in his own defense, but testimony has clearly shown that, while clearly not innocent, he was not the…**_

I squeezed Ducky's hand

…_**prior judgment stands as issued…**_

I won't go so far as to say "the courtroom erupted in cheers." Sighs and whispers, variants on "thank god." We were free, we were safe… and from the way the judge spoke, even Mother Teresa back from the grave and testifying for Mary wouldn't get her out of jail. She was in for good and in for four consecutive life sentences.

_We were safe._

/ / /

Cinco de Mayo.

My birthday had been smack in the middle of Mary's appeal trial; I had no desire to celebrate, so we pushed it until the trial was over. Now, the day after seeing Mary Hanlan being led from court in handcuffs, we had plans to meet family and friends at C'est Bonne. Ducky was going to break the bank, but we didn't care. We were celebrating my birthday—and the freedom and relief we all felt. And since C'est Bonne isn't a Mexican restaurant, it was going to be pretty empty. (And Ducky had already called ahead for the 100-layer chocolate crepe tower. Three of them.)

"Oh, Cassandra, look!"

I followed Mother's shaky finger. "Root ball. Kind of root-bound, but I think I can—"

"No, look. _Look_!"

I looked again. On our last trip to the garden center of Home Depot, Mother had picked up a _huge_ lavender plant for the front garden. After cutting off the plastic pot, we had discovered the poor thing was a tangled mess of root spaghetti. I was trying to loosen the dirt and free the roots, with limited success.

Suddenly I saw what she saw. Like clouds or burning embers, the roots and soil had shifted to create a picture. "A horse and rider?"

"Lipizzaner," she said sagely.

I looked at her in surprise. "Lipizzaner? Why Lipizzaner?"

She gave me a 'tsk' look. "Look how he prances!"

"Ah. Okay." Hey, she has a good imagination. Sometimes it collides with reality—but we do the best we can with what we've got. I went back to gently brushing dirt from scraggly roots; I wanted to get things finished by teatime so I could get all of us presentable for dinner. Jeans and a t-shirt would fly at Hippie Gypsy; C'est Bonne—at least at dinner—required a little more sartorial whoop-ti-do.

"What a pretty garden."

I glanced up at the unfamiliar voice. "Thanks, we—" My words died and I started to shake. _No. It's not real. This can't be happening._

"You're quite the gardener." _The same words Mary had said to me in so many dreams, the start of what would become a heart-pounding, sweat-inducing nightmare._

Mary Hanlan _had_ had a sister. That sister _had_ died, beaten to death by her alcoholic husband about fifteen years before Mary and Vincent went on their revenge rampage; the husband then shot himself and set fire to the house. I had seen pictures of a sad, scared woman about ten years younger than Mary, dead while just past thirty. She would have been in her late forties or early fifties now—

_About the age of the woman in front of me. _

Taking into account changes over two decades… about the age of and looking rather like the woman in front of me.

_Go! Run into the house! Take Mother and the baby!_ I wanted to scream. My voice was frozen.

"I just moved in down the way. My husband and I, that is. We have three at home—Jennifer, she's fifteen going on forty; Chris, he's twelve; and John is ten. But I saw you with the baby the other day, wanted to come over—our eldest daughter, Denise, moved back home, her husband is stationed in Iraq, she has twins just about your age," she said sweetly toward Allie (who was crawling around on the grass, chasing Isabeau who waddled safely out of range with no effort).

The tightness in my chest started to ease. A little. "Hi. I'm Cassandra Mallard. Sandy. That's my mother-in-law, Victoria, her companion-aide, Suzy Bailey. Alexandra, my daughter." I waved to the appropriate person in turn.

"Jessica. Jessica Fletcher."

My jaw fell open slightly. "I'm… sorry… What?"

She laughed. "Jessica Fletcher. And, no—I don't write mysteries. I don't ride a bicycle around town and go poking my nose into everyone else's business. And I promise, I _swear_, wherever I move or stay, I do _not_ leave bodies behind!"

I grinned, scrambled up, dusted the dirt from my hands and stuck one out to shake. "Mrs. Fletcher," I laughed. "I am _so glad_ to hear you say that…!"


End file.
